Category Archives: Culture

Cause or effect?

Posted on February 13, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Posted in Culture, Logical Fallacies | Leave a comment

Final results of the 2015 New Zealand flag referendum

Posted on February 12, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

The New Zealand flag referendum was decided using an instant run-off voting procedure. Under this system of preference voting, the voters rank the choices in order of preferred alternatives. Notice how voting occurs over several stages or rounds and how the choice … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Voting | 1 Comment

Tree time …

Posted on February 11, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

We converted our traditional Christmas tree into an “NFL playoffs tree” after Three Kings’ Day (we completed this makeover while the family was sleeping). Now that the Super Bowl is done, my wife wants me to take down our tree. … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Voting | 1 Comment

XY/XX lavatory signs

Posted on February 7, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Posted in Culture, Science | Leave a comment

Bargaining and Betrayal in Breaking Bad

Posted on February 2, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Last fall, we posted the abstract to our work-in-progress titled “Breaking Bad and the Natural Law Tradition.” Originally, we were going to write about the conflict between meth kingpin Walter White (alias Heisenberg) and DEA agent Hank Schrader from a … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Ethics, Game Theory, Games, Law | 1 Comment

Bud Light for President?

Posted on January 24, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Cheers! This lighthearted beer ad actually teaches an important lesson regarding statutory and constitutional interpretation–a fundamental lesson often lost on naive “originalists” or textualist legal scholars: a word or term of art like “party” (or “speech,” “arms,” “natural born,” etc.) … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Current Affairs, Language, Law | Leave a comment

Vertical history

Posted on January 22, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Tim Urban invites us to think about history in vertical terms in this thoughtful blog post. (By the way, we discovered his post via jason kottke, one of our favorite bloggers of all time.) Mr Urban presents a beautiful botanical … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, History | Leave a comment

Tinder trailer

Posted on January 17, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Questions about Tinder: How does the “Super Like” function described in the video above overcome or solve the problem of cheap talk or false signals? Also, does Tinder improve or reduce the overall level of “welfare” or “utility”–as economists define … Continue reading →

Posted in Cheating, Cooperation, Culture, Current Affairs | Leave a comment